You can store insulin but not in large quantitites and it is a hugely delicate process to synthethise it in the first place. You can "biohack" it to a certain degree (it is how it was first discovered and manufactured after all), but getting a good purity end product that aligns to nowadays' standards is quite difficult and you can't do it in a shed. And with insulin purity and consistency in the product are paramount seeing how small the necessary doses are.
I understand the issues that come with dependence on pharmaceutical companies, but this is what they do. In today's world we are highly dependent on supply chains and that includes both toilet paper and insulin.
Does that work? Over time insulin flocculates and becomes inactive. I suppose my info is ~10 years old from when I worked on insulin biophysics, it's possible contemporary formulations are more effective at maintaining stability.
Expiration dates vary wildly based on a number of factors, which you probably know, but for completeness: opened vs unopened, refrigerated vs non-refrigerated, brand to brand, etc.
It is true that it becomes inactive over time, but those rates vary. And people know that manufacturers put expiration dates based on liability. Yeah if it says that it expires after a year, that's because they know that 2 units is 2 units after that long, but it's variable enough that you're not going to just get rid of something so expensive and precious when it's likely to still work just as well, and even if it's not "just as well," still be reasonably effective. It's a slow, steady decline, not a "this goes from fully potent to useless at this moment in time" kind of thing. Yeah maybe you'll give yourself four units and it'll actually be effectively 3.5; that's still better than zero.
> It's a slow, steady decline, not a "this goes from fully potent to useless at this moment in time" kind of thing. Yeah maybe you'll give yourself four units and it'll actually be effectively 3.5; that's still better than zero.
The process of flocculation itself is autocatalytic and therefore ~exponential. Though the k factor might be low enough and minor deviations in the exact mechanism that are formulation-dependent might to make it look quasi-linear for quite a long time, followed by a precipitous drop.
US here. I only managed to do it because of a loophole. My wife has the beetus, and with insurance we pay $40 a month, without insurance it is about $600 for a month, so stockpiling it is effectively impossible.
Luckily during her last pregnancy my wife was prescribed substantially more insulin than she'd previously need for a month because the pregnancy was messing up her blood sugar, it stopped once she had the baby, but we still have the same dosage right now, so we are accumulating a small amount. That being said, it was the only way we could figure out to do it.
At least in the US, stockpiling is absolutely common to a degree. You are absolutely correct about checks, they make it even hard to get supplies when it's legitimate at times, but what ends up happening is people skimp in order to save some away, and build up a reserve over time.
